It’s a show of force that is both dramatic and excessive. It’s working. I can feel myself begin to tremble as I silently allow them to escort me down a narrow hallway, devoid of all the frills of the casino floor.
We pass a row of standard office doors, most of them dark, as we walk all the way down to the end of the hall.
The further from the crowds we get, the more my heart rate ticks up, til my chest is so tight, I start to worry my heart is going to explode.
I can feel my breath coming in short gasps, my feet tripping in my flats so that the guards have to hold me up to keep me from falling.
But they don’t stop. They keep dragging me closer to the door at the end of the hall. The one I know is his…
First because it’s his name emblazoned on the frosted glass.
But second…the door itself is nicer than the others. It’s the wood grain, the quality of the glass, even the knob is a polished brass.
I start to resist then, attempting to pull out of my guards’ grip.
They both tighten their hands. There is a saying that people sometimes toss around, ‘Never fuck with a Russian.’ No one messes with my brother Dimitri. And Katarina, she’d gouge your eye out while she smiled in your face. But me?
Sure, I can sneak past a complicated security system. And yeah, I can count cards to steal from a casino. But real violence, I don’t have it in me. I never have. In fact…I’m a bit of a scaredy cat that way.
It’s how my father has always been able to easily control me.
The guy on my right reaches out and opens the door, as they shift sideways so that we can all fit through the doorway while they keep their grip on me. They’re barely even trying despite my struggles.
The second guy through the door closes it behind us as I attempt to remove myself from their grip once again. “Let me go.”
“Not a chance,” the front one mutters.
“Where am I going to go?” I huff back, desperate for a bit of space, some room to think and plan. “You just closed me in.”
He gives me a side eye as they lead me to a set of chairs in front of a massive mahogany desk.
Then, the one on my left puts a hand on my shoulder, forcing me to sit. I hardly notice, because my mind is spinning.
I snuck out of my jail. Tried to steal my way to freedom. What is my brother, my new jailer, going to think if he finds out?
But at least,when my butt hits the cushioned seat, they take their hands off my biceps, only one of them keeping his hand on my shoulder to make sure I don’t go anywhere.
The other guy disappears through a side door.
It’s the silence that kills me. From here, I can’t hear the casino floor at all, and I feel so alone.
Anything could happen to me, and no one would come to my rescue.
No one from my family even knows I’m here.
My breath hitches. Ryker Smith could kill me here and my sister would just marry him, none the wiser.
My head spins as nausea rises up in my throat.
I close my eyes as one thought drives me forward. I wanted out. Life with my father was no life at all.
Life with my brother, only the slightest bit better.
And I suppose, death, in its own way, is out.
That thought calms me enough that I don’t throw up over the plush burgundy carpet under my feet.
But I find myself rhythmically tapping my knee as I close my eyes. I won’t beg. But I will ask for a bit of grace.
